House of Feuds

Russia Blocks House of Cards from Filming Inside U.N. Security Council

There’s something appropriate about House of Cards, a show about how political life is mostly about personal grudges and revenge, getting hamstrung by Vladimir Putin. If Frank Underwood were real, he probably could have persuaded the Kremlin to walk back its decision to deny the show a chance to film inside the United Nations Security Council. And while we don’t discount the possibility that Kevin Spacey has cornered Putin in a dark Kremlin hallway to change his mind, for the moment, it seems that Russia has beaten Netflix.

The drama series, currently filming its third season, had reportedly asked to film inside the Security Council for two episodes. According to Foreign Policy, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recommended that the show be welcomed in, but Russia denied the request, claiming they wanted to keep the room available for “any international crises that may arise during the filming.” To us, that reads like Russia tipping its hand—what international crisis is on its docket that it’s not telling us about? Or hey, maybe they plan to create a hostage crisis by sitting Robin Wright down and talking about The Princess Bride for eight hours.

Foreign Policy says it’s still possible Netflix will be able to film in another part of the U.N., so Frank Underwood’s diplomatic relations skills will surely still see the light of day. If a subplot about how nasty and arbitrary Russia is makes its way in there, now you know why.